Plastic debris are ubiquitous, and the Arctic is no exception. Despite the relatively low population number around the Arctic, abundances of microplastic litter are like those of the most polluted subtropical areas. Micro- and nanoplastics have been found in Arctic fauna, but due to constraints in methodology, measurements of nanoplastics in sea water have not been carried out yet. Micro- and ...

Southern elephant seals are abundant top trophic predators with a circumpolar distribution in the Southern Ocean. They spend up to 80% of their life at sea on long-ranging migrations to remote foraging grounds. During breeding and moulting they haulout on subantarctic islands. During these migrations they dive continuously to great depth, encountering various environmental conditions. They ...

Cetaceans are known to utilise the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a key topographical feature in the Atlantic Ocean, for migratory and feeding purposes. Passive acoustic monitoring was used over a one-year period (2007/2008) to identify cetacean vocalisations that occurred on a location near the Charlie Gibbs Fracture Zone. Using species-specific vocalisations that have previously been documented in the North ...

Male humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) sing structurally complex songs traditionally associated with low latitude breeding grounds. This vocal behaviour is increasingly reported outside these areas. All singers in a given population sing the same version of a song that is constantly evolving with modifications on different levels within the song structure. This study provides the first detailed ...

Deep-sea sharks are little resilient to targeted harvesting and bycatch fisheries due to their life history strategy characterized by slow growth, late sexual maturity, low fecundity, and few offspring. The Northeast Atlantic component of Etmopterus spinax is an example of a species where substantial population changes in terms of abundances have occurred due to intensive fisheries induced mortality. ...

Humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) are a cosmopolitan species, migrating between their mid- and high latitude foraging- and low latitude breeding grounds. Of these, the Northeast Atlantic (NEA-) population cover the longest migration distance of all mammals that last up to half a year. On the foraging grounds they feed extensively throughout the summer until early winter to gain enough energy ...

The substantial influx of freshwater to High Arctic coastal ecosystems influences nutrient, organic matter, and sediment dynamics, stratification, and light availability throughout the melt season. These changes shape pelagic microbial community composition and functioning, though little is known about impacts on nearshore benthic bacteria. Globally, mudflats are hotspots for biogeochemical cycling, ...

Shortening winters and changing ice and snow cover conditions are examples of the many shifts expected in subarctic lakes due to climate change. Well-documented changes in ice and snow cover conditions highlight the need to understand under-ice ecosystems and the consequences a changing climate brings to the freshwater biota. This study investigated the impact of under-ice environmental conditions ...

Interactions involving parasites often account for large proportions of links within aquatic food webs, yet few studies integrate parasites into their food web analyses. This analysis compares three sets of highly resolved food webs that differ in taxa composition, space, and time for a subarctic lake system. Key topological food web metrics, including connectance, linkage density, and mean generality ...

Birds are endothermic homeotherms that regulate internal metabolic heat production to keep a stable body core temperature. Lung ventilation, which is required to obtain oxygen for metabolism, is potentially a large source for heat and water loss. In a polar habitat with low year-round temperatures and scarcity of food in the winter, conservation of heat and water is crucial for survival of the ...